ŞERBAN PAPACOSTEA – MORALITATEA CA FUNDAMENT AL EXCELENŢEI PROFESIONALE
ŞERBAN PAPACOSTEA – MORALITY AS THE FOUNDATION OF PROFESSIONAL EXCELLENCE

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the relationship between intellectuals and Power, as wellas public attitudes towards contemporary issues through the prism of the personalityof historian Şerban Papacostea. The historian's personality and public attitudes areanalyzed both during the communist regime and after, with the main idea being thecontinuity of moral and professional attitudes in both political contexts. The refusal tocompromise with the communist regime, at the cost of marginalizing the historian inNicolae Ceauşescu’s academic system in Romania, added a moral component toŞerban Papacostea's scientific work that is as significant as the intellectual component.Therefore, there are no significant differences between Şerban Papacostea’'s publicattitudes and scientific concepts during communism and those practiced after its fall.Such an individual trajectory highlights the inconsistency of the thesis of "thenecessity of compromise" as a survival strategy during Ceauşescu's totalitarianism.The article also refers to the historian's vision of the role of historians indemocratic societies. Şerban Papacostea was a tireless advocate of the historian'sduty to understand and explain contemporary phenomena. Such an approach impliesthe existence of the historian's public attitudes towards what concerns society, whichputs the historian, if not necessarily in conflict with Power, at least in contact with it.

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